Lady in White

Lady in White is a 1988 American supernatural mystery film directed, produced, written and scored by Frank LaLoggia, and starring Lukas Haas, Len Cariou, Alex Rocco, and Katherine Helmond. Set in 1962 upstate New York, it follows a schoolboy (Haas) who, after witnessing the ghost of a young girl, becomes embroiled in a mystery surrounding a series of brutal child murders. LaLoggia's second feature film after Fear No Evil (1981), Lady in White was independently funded by him through a penny stock company he formed with his cousin, Charles LaLoggia. Principal photography occurred in Lyons, New York in the fall of 1986. The story is based on a version of The Lady in White legend, concerning a woman who supposedly searches for her daughter in Durand-Eastman Park in Rochester, New York, from where the director hails. Despite positive reviews from critics, the film was a box office bomb. It later earned status as a cult film. Plot On Halloween 1962, nine-year-old Frankie Scarlatti is locked inside his classroom coatroom by schoolmates Donald and Louie at the end of the day. Trapped well after dark, he witnesses the apparition of a young girl being murdered in the coatroom, though her assailant is invisible. Moments later, a man enters the coatroom and attempts to open a vent grate on the floor, but notices Frankie. He strangles him to unconsciousness. In a near-death vision, Frankie again sees the girl, who asks for his help to find her mother. Frankie is revived by his father, Angelo, and rushed to the hospital. Frankie was unable to see his attacker's face. The school janitor, Harold "Willy" Williams, found drunk in his office, is arrested as he was on school grounds at the time of the assault.